1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mat with seed and a method of producing a mat with seed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the growing of turf on a putting green, a tee ground, a fairway and the like on a golf course, and the development of turf surfaces on green park tracts of land, a riverbed and the like, turf seeds have been directly seeded by hand, sprayed, or raw turfs, such as Korai turfs, have been planted.
However, in engineering methods such as the direct seeding of the turf seeds by hand and the spraying of the seeds, disadvantages have occurred in that the seeding and spraying are apt to be unevenly carried out, and thus an unevenness is produced in the germinating condition of the turf, whereby it is difficult to form a uniform turf surface. The engineering method of planting raw turfs has not exhibited the above-described disadvantages, but a disadvantage has occurred in that the construction unit cost has increased.
Having turf seeds uniformly adhered to a nonwoven fabric by spraying a water-soluble starch material on to the turf seeds and dropping the turf seeds on one side of the dispersive nonwoven fabric has been considered. Roughly intertwined fibers and finely intertwined fibers are repeated lengthways and breadthways at suitable intervals to form a mat with seed, and then the mat with seed is planted on the surface of the ground.
However, in the above-described conventional mats with seed, the fibers of the nonwoven fabric are intertwined lengthways and breadthways, so that a problem has occurred in dispersibility. In addition, since foam bubbles of the water-soluble starch material are uneven in size, portions to which large drops of water-soluble starch material are adhered are insufficiently dried, and the dispersive nonwoven fabric absorbs water to be dispersed before the drying is completed. Thus it has been difficult to obtain the desired mat with seed.
Furthermore, in the case of a mat with seed for use on a golf course, it is important to uniformly adhere a small quantity of turf seed. But, in the method in which the water-soluble search material is sprayed on to the turf seeds and the turf seeds are dropped on the fabric, a problem has occurred in that it is difficult to control the quantity of seeds seeded. Thus the seeds are apt to be seeded in a striped pattern, and it is difficult to maintain uniformity.
The present invention has been achieved in view of the above-described problems of the prior art, and it is one object of the present invention to provide a useful mat with seed capable of uniformly germinating to form turf that looks good. It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of easily producing a mat with seed capable of securely and fixedly attaching turf seeds and the like to a nonwoven fabric.